You might remember TiVo from the early days of DVR boxes, but last year the company revealed it was working on its own smart TV platform to rival Google, Amazon, and Roku. The first TVs with the new software experience have nearly arrived.

The first “Powered by TiVo” smart TVs are expected to ship “as early as spring 2023,” with European TV maker Vestel as the first company to jump onboard. The TVs will be sold in France, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Turkey, under brands like Vestel, Daewoo, Regal, Hitachi, Telefunken and JVC.

TiVo OS is branded as a “first-of-its-kind neutral platform,” without giving preferential treatment to specific services or platforms. The software experience can be heavily customized by the TV maker, though, which is an advantage (to the TV companies) over most other smart TV experiences. TiVo specifically mentioned that TV makers can “brand the experience, retain customer ownership and participate in the long-term CTV monetization throughout the lifecycle of TV ownership.” That last point means the TV manufacturer gets a cut of ad revenue.

The software experience supposedly offers “easy content discovery” and personalized recommendations, as well as voice navigation. There’s no word on which streaming services will offer apps for TiVo OS, but the company is promising a free live TV service with “more than 160+ free channels and 100,000 hours’ worth of content” — presumably similar to the Roku Channel or Pluto TV.

It’s not clear when (or if) TVs running TiVo’s software will be sold in other regions, including the United States.

Source: Business Wire